The traditional English way is:
[from wikipedia]
Quote
"Thirty Days Hath September", or "Thirty Days Has September", is a traditional verse mnemonic used to remember the number of days in the months of the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It arose as an oral tradition and exists in many variants. It is currently earliest attested in English, but was and remains common throughout Europe as well. Full:
Thirty days has September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
But February's twenty-eight,
The leap year, which comes once in four,
Gives February one day more.
An alternative version goes:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except February, twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.
Unquote
What a lot of work! As a cheat (recipe) person, I like to come up with short cuts. My version can be cited in a few seconds:
Start with January, which is the first month (therefore an odd number) and has 31 days.
Go down the odd numbers for 31 days: 1, 3, 5, 7, which are January, March, May, July.
Then switch to even numbers for 31 days: 8, 10, 12, which are August, October, December.
The rest have 30 days.
Except February which has 28 (and 29 in a leap year).
End of my mnemonic. So much quicker.
I know an easy way, that was taught to me when I was a young child, either by my mother or my teacher at school: start with the knuckles on your left hand: there are 5 peaks and 4 valleys. A peak is for 31 and a valley for 30. When you’re finished with the left hand continue on the right hand. The only extra thing to remember is that February has 28 instead of 30. I have used this many times with my students in the US and nobody had ever heard of it.
ReplyDeleteYour hand knuckle method is the Chinese one, too.
DeleteOne says, forming a fist and pointing at the first knuckle (of the index finger where it joins the hand) -- what you call the "peak": 一月大 / yī yuè dà / first month big.
Then, pointing at the trough (what you call the "valley") between the index finger and the middle finger: 二月小 / èr yuè xiǎo / second month small.
Continuing this way, one will reach the seventh month when one gets to the last knuckle (of the small finger), with the seventh month being big.
Move over to the other hand, starting with the eighth month which is big, until one gets to the twelfth month.
This method is still slower than my self-invented method of: (starting with odd number) 1, 3, 5, 7, (then moving to even number) 8, 10, 12, which can be done in five seconds, I'd say. One also needs both hands -- my odd-/even-number method doesn't.
My method, however, won't work with people who don't know their numbers (e.g., young children), whereas the knuckle method will, so it does have its limitations.
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ReplyDeleteThe knuckle method is simpler, though, and requires no memorization at all, because there is nothing to remember other than the higher point is for the longer month, which is a natural thing. But there is nothing special about breaking the sequence as 4-3 instead for example 3-4, so there is something one has to remember with that method.
ReplyDeleteTrue, one does have to remember where to switch over to the even-number months, so I guess it's a matter of who the user is and how quickly s/he wants to get the info together. As mentioned in the blog, a very young child will probably not know the concept of odd/even numbers.
DeleteI can think of one small snag for the knuckles method. The user of this method will still have to know how to proceed after the last knuckle:
(i) go back (from the last knuckle towards the index finger, i.e., into the trough/valley, in which case you're just going to get alternating big-small-big-small sequence, which therefore doesn't need any method at all),
or
(ii) start from the beginning (the index finger) for the 8th month onwards (i.e., peak again, producing 2 big months in a sequence which is the crux of the mnemonic, isn't it).
Yes, one needs to know what to do after the first hand, using two hands solves that problem.
ReplyDelete